Conscious
by abattoirdreams
Summary: Just some delving deeper into the minds of House, Wilson, and Cuddy during a portion of the Tritter arc.


Title: Conscience  
Author: Saturn-hime (and any other variant of what I call myself)  
Rating: PG for language only  
Pairing: None  
Coherency level: Also none  
Spoilers: Takes place sometime after 3x10, and it does contain spoilers.

Diclaimer: Not owned. Enjoyed but definitely not owned.

Note: This is from around the Tritter arc, as I sat thinking about it, so it's a rather old piece. However, I thought I should add another layer to my fanfics so as not to disturb anything.

It's worse in the nighttime. The shaking, screaming agony of pain induced by not any physical wound, but by extreme guilt. It leaves him up at night and tears at his resolve, wrestling with his fear of rejection, and his sense of right and wrong; good and bad. It stalks the nightmares he cannot remember and leaves him awake, crying out for the salvation that only certainty can bring. In the morning, he has taken to splashing his haggard face with the coldest water the hotel can manage and brushing a little something under his eyes to hide the dark bags that formed there from the restless nights spent wondering if he did the right thing.

He may never really have full certainty.

* * *

He had, for one single, fleeting moment, thought that he would need to spill his manipulations. While his pride would never allow that he come clean, his conscience would never let him condone their lying. He did not need it, and it wounded the harsh façade he held that he allowed them to continue keeping up the charade to save his sorry, pathetic, gimpy ass. 

He expected Chase to break first, really. Tritter had them all where he wanted them; he had them gripped more tightly at the balls (in Cameron's case, only metaphorically) than Vogler ever had, threatening their jobs and livelihoods should they refuse to come clean, and they still refused to prove their crippled boss wrong. No, James had to burst the Tom Cruise-worthy bubble that, though suffocating, allowed him his practice and even the most miniscule amount of vicodin.

They proved him right on so many levels and gutted the beating, pulsing thing that counted as his heart in so many others. His pride refused the thought that they would lie for him; he refused to need that. They only worked for him; they should have no emotional attachment to anything other than their job, and what did they do? They focused their energy on helping him, not the patients that desperately required their time and energy.

Everybody lies.

He said it often enough to make them build up a barrier to shield them from truth. Hell, it protected and coddled them if they refused to notice that the cynical man chipped at their conscience and forced them to, for just one second, consider their own faults and weaknesses--to asses their lies.

He wished, for one moment, that he could relieve them of their burden.

* * *

She remembered the first Christmas present she ever gave. It had not received any awards from Consumer Digest, nor had it even cost her anything physical, but it had received the brightest smile she ever got from her mother. It was the smile that she carried with her each and every day as she watched mothers with their children. Whether shopping in a crowded mall or talking down a hysterical woman whose child had the barest of sniffles, she longed to shoot that smile at a little girl or boy who only had eyes for her. 

And House, who had known and had bitten so deep, cutting violently at the raw marks of her still-fresh miscarriage, had pressed in such a way that she understood everything and nothing so suddenly that it took her several hours to realize her new knowledge. She saw him as the bitter man who held back his utter shame and fascination with the world and forced through the arrogant doctor who cared little for anyone, while at the same time he cared a great deal more than anyone would ever know.

Now, every time she saw him, his face sallow and wracked with either anger or pain, she felt something gnaw at her, pulling at her Jiminy Cricket, and forcing her to rethink an unchangeable situation. She could not help him, not when she saw the validity in both his argument and the detective's. This alone kept her on her path, even though it fought daily with her morals.


End file.
